What is figure?

Famous quotes containing the word figure:

“We’ve got to figure these things a little bit different than most people. Y’know, there’s something about going out in a plane that beats any other way.... A guy that washes out at the controls of his own ship, well, he goes down doing the thing that he loved the best. It seems to me that that’s a very special way to die.”
—Dalton Trumbo (1905–1976)

“A homely face and no figure have aided many women heavenward.”
—Minna Antrim (1861–?)

“... only
A figure spun on stirring of the air,
And so, untrue.”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)